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41st Tour du Limousin - 2.1

France, August 19-22, 2008

Stage 2 - August 20: Bellac - Bellac, 183km

Arashiro beats in-form Roche

By Gerard Cromwell

Japan's Yukiya Arashiro won the second stage ahead of Ireland's in-form Nicolas Roche. Australian Allan Davis finished third in the bunch sprint. Roche consolidated his overall lead in the four-day French stage race and is now 13 seconds ahead of Arashiro.

The young Irishman praised his Crédit Agricole outfit. "The team did an excellent ride for me today," Roche said afterwards. "The first 25 kilometres or so were hard for me, because I had such a long day in the front yesterday, and there were a lot of early attacks, but when the break went my team controlled it and I came around a bit."

The end was much more to Roche's liking. "Today was an uphill sprint finish, which is my strongest point. The Japanese guy just beat me in the last few metres. I'm a bit disappointed not to have won the stage because my team-mate Sebastian Hinault sacrificed himself for me in the sprint. It would have been fantastic to win two stages in two days, while wearing the yellow jersey, but I went too early and Sebastian just stayed on my wheel to try and stop people coming around me in the last few metres. He could have won the stage himself, so I'm disappointed with that. But I got a few more seconds overall. Tomorrow is a very hard day though, with a lot of climbs."

This quartet built up a maximum lead of 2'50, with Mazet going into the race lead on the road. Crédit Agricole with Gabriel Rasch and Cofidis with Maxime Monfort brought the gap down to under two minutes with 25 kilometres to go. Here, Frenchman Gérard attacked his breakaway companions in a last ditch bid for glory and hovered some 20 seconds ahead of the bunch for much of the remainder of the stage. Some strong riding on the front of the peloton by the Spanish Caisse D'Epargne team for their sprinter saw him reeled in as the field passed under the kilometre-to-go kite with the stage set for a bunch sprint finish.

Roche had signed a deal with AG2R La Mondiale just the night before. "I always liked AG2R," Roche said last night. "They are a similar team to Crédit Agricole. I haven't spoken about a race programme yet, but I would hope to ride the Tour de France with them in 2009."